PSYC 2113 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Emil Kraepelin, Dorothea Dix, Electroconvulsive Therapy

• School: Acadia University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2113
• Professor: Birdie Bezanson

Document Summary

There are three ways to discuss abnormal behaviour: the supernatural tradition, the biological tradition, and the psychological tradition. Supernatural: the belief that abnormal behaviour was caused by things like demons and (cid:449)it(cid:272)hes. It (cid:449)as(cid:374)(cid:859)t see(cid:374) as a(cid:374) ill(cid:374)ess, rather it (cid:449)as (cid:272)o(cid:374)sidered so(cid:373)ethi(cid:374)g (cid:449)ithi(cid:374). Even today depression and addiction are sometimes viewed as laziness or a bad character trait. Aids in the 80s was thought to be caused by homosexuality in men. This is a more modern example of the supernatural tradition of medicine. Treatment in the supernatural tradition was based on shocking or scaring techniques (e. g. exorcism, torture, beatings) It kept happening because sometimes the treatments worked, at least temporarily. An astronomer related abnormal behaviour to the moon and stars. This is where the term lunacy or lunatic came from. He talked about it being an illness due to the brain. He recognized that environmental factors could influence abnormal behaviour. (e. g. trauma)